On
Sunday morning (12 March) the alarm went off at 5:30. With the
Picadilly Line under repair, we'd arranged a taxi to the airport,
where we arrived well before the 7:20 group meet-up time. There were
a couple of likely looking people there already, but some of them
were as late as we were early. Nevertheless, 13 of us had managed to
all get there, plus a couple of well-wishers, and the group doctor
who was catching the flight with us. The group ranged from 20 to 59
years old, with two in their twenties, two in our thirties and the
rest in their forties and fifties. There were five women and eight
men. Of the other 12, four I knew pretty well and one more I'd met
at SPRI. We were all excitable, and a bit wary of what we'd let
ourselves in for – but the BBC cameraman was probably the least
well prepared. A reporter from the BBC had signed up in early
January, and got very involved, before discovering ten days before
departure that she was pregnant, and so couldn't come. She was
pretty upset, but felt good for having found a substitute – though
it turns out that he hadn't had much idea of what he was letting
himself in for. He'd agreed to spend a week filming in the Arctic
long before he discovered he'd have to run his own dog sledge!
The journey to Gargia (Pronounced with Gs hard) took most of the day. The first plane took us to Oslo, where we had an hour for lunch despite having departed Heathrow and hour late, and the second flight to Alta was actually longer than the international leg, even though the plane was just as fast. We landed at sunset, skidding about outside the terminal, and the first snowball was thrown even before we got into the building to collect our bags. The excitement hit fever pitch when someone spotted the Northern Lights from the window of the minibus as we headed out to our starting point. They were a weak wash across the sky, moving about and fading away, so we could, just about, tick them off even as we hoped for a better look later.
Gargia
is a small town about 25km from Alta, and there is a fjellstue at the
end of the road, where we stayed on the Sunday and Friday nights.
Fjellstue means mountain lodge, though this one was closer to a
motel, with regular vehicle access and rooms for two or three with
central heating. We had roast salmon for dinner, followed by our
first briefing. The essence of the briefing was that at least half
the stuff we brought with us was excess to requirements, but could be
stowed here until we got back. Then we were issued with Arctic boots
(Sorrel brand, with a Polar Bear icon – most desirable Polar wear,
with a thick insulating layer), an Arctic suit (like a well padded
boiler suit with a hood, but also with ventilation zips under the
arms and at the hips), windproof mittens with plenty of wrist cover,
and a hat, which I only used on the first day, as it didn't work well
with my assorted balaclavas and beanies. Underneath the outerwear,
all I needed was thermals, socks and a lightweight polo neck.
The
next morning, we were introduced to the dogs. To be precise, some of
the group had gone out to look at them the night before, and half the
group had been given the job of feeding the dogs before our
breakfast, but I'd been a bit nervous about going near the creatures
unsupervised, after stories of the vicious running machines which are
Siberian Huskies. It turns out that these days Huskies in Norway
aren't much like that at all. The local guide, and principal dog
owner, says that the classic husky really is a horrid dog, and that
they breed in all sorts from collie to setter, keeping only the
Siberian's fur and it's running/pulling ability. So, our dogs look
like a right collection of mongrels, with only about a fifth looking
truly huskyish. These are technically known as Norwegian Huskies,
apparently. So, Per Thore (pronounce Per-Toreh) told us that
we'd each get four dogs and that we'd have the job of harnessing them
and looking after them during the day. We were soon told to control
them if they were disobedient – no fighting, no breeding – and
then set to putting on the harnesses. These are cloth/synthetic with
padding on the inside. The main loop goes over the dog's head with
each leg going through a gap to put the main pulling surface on the
chest, whilst lighter straps sit over the dog's back so that the loop
which attaches to the pulling line sitting above the tail. The
harnesses come in different sizes for different dogs – but three of
my harnesses were blue, so I had to be quite careful to make sure
each animal got the same harness each day.
At
this point on the first day (Monday), we had our sledges packed, so
the next step was to get our own dogs. We spread our sledges around
amongst the dogs and Per Thore started picking out the animals. Sid
– the other guide – had told us that Per Thore would have been
sizing us up and deciding which dogs to match us with. In essence,
this meant big guys got strong dogs and lighter women got less
powerful animals. Another thing Sid had mentioned was that one of
the dogs had peed on him the day before, and that this was a pretty
bad sign, so when one of the dogs near my sledge decided to wee on
it, I shoved him off immediately. Little did I know my fate was
already sealed and that this big, tough sod with a bloodshot eye was
going to me my engine for the next week. As Per Thore matched up
animals and people, he also had to give a demonstration of how to
break up dog fights, running across the field as someone's pathetic
attempt at slapping a couple of animals was replaced by flailing
fists and boots.
The sledge traces are set up in pairs, with a pulling line that attaches to the back of the harness, and a lead line which keeps the dogs from wandering away. The alternative trace, used in Greenland, is a fan trace, which lets the dogs find their own way more freely, but there are no trees there – and with my subsequent experience, I don't know how you'd even start to keep the dogs apart with such a set-up. The final step is snow anchor, attached to the same point on the sledge as the base of the dog's traces. You kick the anchor into the ground to stop the dogs dragging the sledge when you get off it, though this only works if the snow is hard enough. (It was only ever a question of a shortage of snow on the rare occasions that we were on metalled roads with concrete drainage ditches on the edge.) There is a foot brake on the back of the sledge, which digs into the snow when you put weight onto it, and standing fully on it is generally enough to keep the dogs in place.
Some
of this was lessons learned en-route – and the first one was coming
up, as we were about to set off for the first time. We had been
standing at the front of our string of dogs, to keep them all in line
as the sledges were quite close together, and now we had to get
around to the back, pick up the anchor and set off without crashing
over – or into each other. I think only one person went off at
this point! Then we had to come around a fairly tight curve, which
meant that the dogs at the back could see an obvious short-cut and
didn't much want to bother following the sledge in front. Having
handled that, we set off up into the hills. Gargia is above the
river Alta, but we still had to climb out of the Alta valley. We had
been warned that this would be hard work, but I found it quite a
cruise, occasionally giving a kick at the snow as we wound through
snowy birch forest. Then we were warned to put on balaclavas as we
were about to come out onto the top, above the tree line. The next
few hours were my most miserable of the week. I had decided I didn't
need a polo neck for extra warmth, as I believed I'd be able to get
off and run alongside if I got cold, but this just didn't work, as I
was already on the brake to stay in line. The general rule of our
sledging order was to keep close to the sledge in front of you
(ideally about 1-2 metres between your front dog and the driver in
front), without over-running their sledge or overtaking. This became
incredibly frustrating when I could see a huge gap two sledges in
front of me – like being stuck behind a truck when there is clear
road ahead. The wind was blowing from the front right quarter,
throwing spindrift into our faces, and I hadn't spent enough time
getting to know my arctic suit, so I couldn't get the velcro on the
hood to hold in place if I turned my head, so every time I looked
about at the scenery, I ended up with a cold blast down my neck.
Putting my waterproof, windproof jacket on over the arctic suit made
me feel better for a while, but I gradually got cold again.
Eventually,
we came down into a thinly forested valley and to a stop, having done
about 30km for the day. At this stage, my dogs all seemed to be
behaving themselves, and we'd been warned that de-training was a slow
process, as our guides had to set up the lines for the dogs to be
chained to. Even so, we all got our dogs off eventually, and then we
were into the bunk rooms at Suolovuopmi (which seems to be pronounced
Suolomi). My next duty was giving the dogs their evening feed. To
be precise, there were six of us, though we were afterwards split
into three groups for camp duty. The dogs are fed morning and
evening. Per Thore was carrying a stash of dried food and frozen
reindeer bits, which he would mush together with hot water and then
allow to stew for an hour or two (or overnight). I guess this is a
bit like the “hoosh” which the Antarctic explorers refer to. Per
Thore has his system set up well – each chain has 12 dogs, and each
insulated box of made-up food is for one chain. There are 24 bowls
so that you can set out the next chain whilst allowing the last chain
to finish off. For most of the dogs, this is a thirty second job,
but some of them are more pernickety. If they take too long about
it, you pour the rest out onto the snow, where they are free to snack
at it over night. Our reindeer stew was just as welcome, though I
like to think that we got better bits of the deer than the dogs did,
and we also had mashed potato rather than dog biscuit.
Another essential item of kit turned out to be my slippers – which kept my socks dry in the vestibules where boots and arctic suits were left whilst we were indoors. I also quickly realised that the only way to keep the same pair of boots all week would be to keep a marker, so I took to wearing my goggles whenever I was outside and putting them on top of my boots whenever I went in.